


How We Roll

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [89]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: And the implied inefficiencies thereof, Coruscant Guard is Senate Mall Cops, Gen, Government Budgetary Processes, Humor, Space Segways, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24369520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: In the aftermath of The Ghost Incident, Coruscant Guard is down two speeders and need replacements.  What they get are... not speeders.
Series: Soft Wars [89]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 74
Kudos: 492





	How We Roll

“Those are not speeders.”

Thire bustles through the office, doling out holopads to wherever they belong as if he cannot at all hear Fox’s dismay, horror and rising rage. Blockade puts on headphones. Fox can hear the tinny echoes of the Iridonian screaming that was supposed to suggest music. Thire’s bustle eases him closer to the front door.

Fox steps pointedly between him and freedom.

“Lieutenant, where are my fucking speeders?”

There’s a tick of aggravation right at Thire’s left temple, and his jaw bulges a little when he clenches his teeth. There’s defeat there, but Fox is unsympathetic.

There are a pair of abominations, loitering bright white and ominous in Fox’s Front Office. He wants answers.

“The Senate is delayed in approving Coruscant budget, so all government organizations are operating under limited budgetary plans.” He gets wordier when he’s nervous. Is Fox making him nervous right now? _Good_.

“The Senate hasn’t approved a budget on time in a hundred years,” Fox responds with murderous evenness. “Literally no one believes they can anymore. Get. To. The. Fucking point.”

“We can’t buy speeders,” Thire bursts and twitches.

Fox stares him down. “I seem to recall that the uppity shit and his brood offered to pay for them, in exchange for certain photograph files to find themselves corrupted.”

“It’s com-” he starts.

“Uncomplicate it,” Fox interrupts before he can get going. Thire groans.

“We can’t accept 212th funds,” Blockade offers. He hasn’t removed his headphones and that volume _has_ to be doing damage. “Not while the constraint’s in place. And they can’t send funds or it’ll go back to the Treasury as unneeded. So until a budget is passed we don’t get speeders.” He’s smirking. Fox doesn’t know how he knows, doesn’t know how he’s doing it without changing his face at all, but Fox can _feel_ his vicious amusement. “Think of them as basically swoop bikes sir.”

“That’s not a swoop bike, Sergeant. That’s not even a fucking vehicle. It’s a mobility aid.”

But Blockade has gone back to pretending he can’t hear anything.

It would be devious, Fox thinks as he observes the Sergeant with a discerning eye, to have headphones that only echo music outwards. To seem like you can’t hear what’s going on. It would be entirely in character, for Blockade.

Thire slowly tries to shift for the door again. But as if Fox was an akk dog and Thire’s the one eeopie with a limp, it only serves to drag Fox’s attention right back. “Vod,” Fox deadpans and Thire groans.

“They’re called Meanders,” he relents with what most wouldn’t be able to tell is a pout.

“I don’t care of they’re called Wat Tambor, get rid of them and get me an actual fucking patrol vehicle. Unless they’ve decided to stop wasting our time with patrols that aren’t actually our jobs?”

“We still patrol and those are what we have.”

“Go stand in one.”

That draws Thire up short, and he stops trying to angle for the stun baton on Fox’s belt. As if Fox would let him.

“What?”

“You want us to patrol in those? Get in it.”

“ _I_ don’t-”

“Get in it Lieutenant. I can make it an order if you want.”

Fox has known Thire for years; he can read the quickfire calculation that darts across his face as easily as if he’d spoken it aloud. He’d risk a reprimand for it, Fox isn’t at all surprised to find, but he’s finding pause at the thought that Fox might book him for insubordination.

Fox absolutely will and would. He’d go through everything, down to fun picture time and an overnight stay at Villa Cell.

“Fucking try me Thire,” Fox smiles. “Haven’t brutally crushed any spirits yet today.”

“I think you’re underestimating my resilience.”

It doesn’t take much to be intimidating, Fox learned from Alpha-6 as a cadet. No need for bluster and posturing. All it takes is that little edge of uncomfortable incivility. Let your head tilt a few degrees further than natural, smile dip a little toothier than natural, eyes a little wider and blinks a little longer than natural. People dislike the unnatural, will instinctively try to avoid it.

All you have to do is let them believe you’re thinking how much of them you could rip off, before someone stopped you. People really dislike that.

“I know you’re doing that on purpose you under-rinsed grease blot,” Thire spits. It doesn’t matter, he still backs up a step. Fox has won.

“Get in the Meander Thire,” Fox sings, voice throaty filled with unspecified promise. “Show us how it’s done.”

They’re white. An insulting, Shiny white, but Fox isn’t about to suggest they add Guard colors. It’d be too much like acceptance. They’re each the size of a pop-up podium for less important senator speeches, a pair of thick-set flexiplast wheels in parallel hugging either side. There’s an insultingly puny pair of handles sprouting from the top, and an insultingly rudimentary touch screen interface.

This is the nerd that other single passenger vehicles bullied in vehicle training. Thire looks like an actual jackass.

“I feel incredibly like my soul might have been less crushed in a cell,” Thire grumbles. The Meander starts with a cheery beep, and the wom-wom-wom it makes as Thire pulls it away from the wall would be comical if actual Guards weren’t supposed to be on those.

“Yeah you should have taken the cell,” Fox concedes. “You’d look like less of a fucking failure of genetics right now.”

“Have I told you today I hate you boss?”

“Yes, but feel free to do it again. Your despair keeps me young.”

“Comb-in dye keeps you young you karking relic.”

“Well _that_ was fucking hurtful.” Thire knows how self-conscious Fox gets over the silver that’s started to sprout at his temples, and how carefully he has to step in hiding it if he doesn’t want his dye purchase to be the hottest topic in the Senate building for an entire twenty minutes before someone’s discovered dallying with someone else’s staff.

Thire holds his eyes boldly and wom-wom-wom’s across the Front Office Reception. The tires make self-satisfied little reet-reeeeets when Thire applies brakes.

“But probably deserved,” Fox concedes.

Likely deserved. Still, he doesn’t tell Thire that the bucket Fox has tucked under his arm is pointed visor-first at him for a reason, and tilted casually so Fox’s arm doesn’t block the forward visual sensors.

He’ll edit out the dye comment before he posts video anywhere.

“This is a joke. Everyone knows this a joke.” Thire shuts the thing off where it stands, center stage in Fox’s Front Office and wholly unignorable. “CSF is probably behind this, but what else are we going to do?”

Fuck the Coruscant Security Force, Fox thinks on instinct. Those guys. Those fucking guys.

Thire slinks over to Fox’s right and Blockade stops pretending he’s oblivious to everything and falls in to Fox’s left. The three watch the abominations. They don’t get any less obnoxious.

“We could weld gun racks on the sides,” Blockade offers doubtfully. “The motor might not be able to keep up though.”

“And it would send the wrong message,” Thire points out. Fox and Blockade scoff.

It would send the _right_ message, but the masses of Coruscant are far too soft for that sort of thing.

Hearts and minds, Fox reminds himself. They’re more than the GAR’s capital city shill now. Under that, they represent the Vode to the Republic, laying the groundwork for the future.

That presumptuous uppity little shithead fought for years, not just to have the Guard but to have _Fox’s_ Guard, to keep _Fox_ as the most visible face of the Vode while they’re still bound.

Fox isn’t going to let the accumulated waste of genetic material that’s the CSF cause him to fuck that up.

“Get Hound in here. And your brat. Not the karking shooty one, the one with hair.”

“Rys is on Senate Floor this cycle,” Thire protests. “And Hound is front door-”

“Pull em. Blockade, which of the troops pissed you off most-”

“Sharps and Trial,” Blockade shoots back promptly.

“ _Neither_ of which we will _ever_ be assigning to Senate Floor!”

Fox pauses at Thire’s yelp. “Which ones are-”

“‘Is-Constipated-Your-Default-Complexion’ and ‘Is-This-My-Karking-Life’.”

The Commander winces. “Right. Split Hound’s rotations between them. Shuffle who you need to to cover Floor. I’ll take double shift. And get me some stencils and paint.” Fox eyes the monstrosities with merciless determination. “The CSF wants us to look like jackasses? Well then, we’re going to fucking _own it_.”

* * *

“If I started another conversation about ‘needing to have political representation afterwards and how well you might be suited’, how poorly would it go?”

Fox grants the uppity shithead that might one day be his actual boss the single most pleasant look he can muster. The 212th Commander laughs, as if Fox’s own Command staff doesn’t immediately start clocking exits when he wears it. “Okay, I’ll accept that. I’ll ask you to nominate someone instead, is that less likely to get me gutted?”

Fox heartily ignores him.

It’s midmeal hour in a major shopping and restaurant hub, and two Guard Red-striped Meanders idle in the middle of a crowd of curious families. Coruscant Guard Community Outreach is stenciled down the front of each, and Cpl Rys leans easily against the left. The Diplomatic Service trooper is in fine form, bucket abandoned on one of the handles, easy smile on full display. He talks with his hands as much as his words, but it seems to work just fine for his audience. This far away, Fox can’t tell what he’s talking about but it’s probably some cleanly censored tale of Guard Woe. The gaggle around him has been laughing almost non-stop for ten minutes.

Hound has quietly harried a massive flock of younglings into a line and letting them come pet Grizzer one at a time. He’s a little gruff, but anyone can see he’s genuine, and he’s happy to answer any question they have about the massif. Fox watches a pair of Toydarians run out of their allotted time and flutter back to the end of the line for another round.

A family smiles at Fox and the shithead as they go by. Both men wave back to the waving baby, because that’s just what you do.

“And you wonder why I fought so hard for you,” the shithead breathes.

Til the day he meets his pyre, Fox will deny the warmth that blooms in his chest. “Ghost files were corrupted, _ vod'ika _1,” he threatens pleasantly, because they’d both best remember that Fox is definitively older. “But Jedi weren’t. And your menace wasn’t solo in all of them.”

“‘ _ lek _2, ‘lek,” the shithead drawls, because someone must have once told him he was cute. “ _ Kot _3, _ Ori'vod _4.”

Fox is in public and can’t afford the fallout actually murdering him would bring. It’s the only reason he lets the shithead tap _Fox's_ bracer, dance away from him and disappear into the crowd.

_This_ is the idiot supposed to lead them.

It’s fine, he won’t get far, and Fox has the best weapon on his side.

Fox scrolls through the images he’d uploaded to his HUD, finds the one of Kenobi trying to keep the shithead from wrestling out of his uppers. He sends it to Ponds.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Little Brother. Back  
> 2\. Yeah. Back  
> 3\. Strength. If this is your first time dabbling in this little universe of mine, know that this is an in-joke that started [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23407009). Back  
> 4\. Big Brother. Back  
> 


End file.
